At some point it will no longer be necessary to say that long-lived
Georg Schumann was unrelated to Robert Schumann; not yet though.
That said, he is the elder brother of Camillo Schumann, whose
cello works featured on a Naxos
CD. Georg’s works have already had some recording attention.
The Piano Trios 1 and 2, opp. 25 and 62 have been recorded by
the Münchner Klaviertrio on CPO 777 712 2. His choral music
can be sampled on Guild.
The latter was preceded by a complementary Georg Schumann anthology
from the Purcell Singers on ASV CD DCA1091. The connection with
singing is unsurprising given his lifelong involvement with
and leadership of the Berlin Sing-Akademie.

He was born in Saxony into a musical family. Having been taught
violin and piano he quickly attained high standards. His musical
alma mater was the Leipzig Conservatory. There he perfected
his craft. His orchestration in particular, at least as represented
on this disc, was highly skilled. While Gottfried Eberle’s lucidly
flowing notes make some play of the Mendelssohnian style I thought
much more often, in the Symphony, of Brahms and especially the
Brahms of the first two symphonies. This Symphony in four movements
is deeply satisfying. It is in the German romantic centre-stream
originating from the Hamburg master and further suckled from
Schumann and Mendelssohn. There’s a flowingly aureate Adagio,
a quirky penultimate Allegro and a splendidly stirring, happy
and finally imperious finale - Allegro. In fact the first movement
is an Allegro also. Crudely put, you can think of this 45-minute
symphony as being in the character of Brahms 2 and Schumann
3. There was to be at least one more symphony from him, written
circa 1905 and in F minor. The F minor is said to win the listener
over by virtue of its strong sense of unity.

The present Prize-Winning Symphony - it is Prize
not Price so you can ignore the booklet and insert
typos – made 21-year-old Georg’s name throughout the Germanic
states.

Two decades onwards and the Serenade shows a more variegated
mood palette. There’s a vivid imagination engaged here yet within
the style of the times. Winged Mendelssohnian elfin-macabre
is at play among the first two movements: sprites and spooks
revel or drowse as they go about their fairy business. Eberhard
Knobloch’s caressingly relished clarinet solo is at the centre
of a most adroitly paced Ständchen. The brilliant finale
has a Walpurgisnacht air – a nicely contrasting corrective to
the other four movements. This work makes a good companion to
the orchestral serenades of Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902) and
Ignaz Brüll (1846-1907) which I have been getting to know through
David Kent-Watson’s Cameo Classics CDs – also well worth seeking
out (review in hand).

I hope that after this substantial orchestral prelude to the
Georg Schumann revival there will be later instalments. These
vigorous, dedicated and dramatically informed performances and
fine recordings by Gedschold, his Munich orchestra and CPO need
to lead on to further Schumann revivals. I hope they will take
us to the F minor symphony, the oratorio Ruth, his
First World War tone poem Struggle for an Ideal and
an unpublished Violin Concerto.

No masterpieces on this disc but works of the real accomplishment
and satisfaction and, in the case of the mature Serenade, of
virile romantic imagination.

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